The Cats of Life

I love animals. When my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I moved to the mountains last year, we were very excited to introduce a dog into our family soon. But I had the bar exam, and then the wedding, so we said we'll get the dog when things settle down. We're still dogless, because we have imposed upon ourselves the condition that we must be home for thirty days straight before we can bring in the responsibility of a dog. We haven't managed that yet. Wish us luck.

But you know who else never had a dog? The Facts girls. But they did briefly have a cat in the two-part final episode of season five. Jo was none too pleased.

Recap episode 1-2 "Like Mother Like Daughter" or: Thank Goodness for Marj Dusay

I've been working on a post tracking the decor of the girls' bedroom at Eastland in seasons two through four. It's fun (and remarkably consistent!), but it does take a while. Realizing that I've been grossly derelict in updating this blog for the past couple of weeks however (studying for the bar exam does take up a significant amount of time, it turns out), I've decided to keep working on that post on the side, but give you some more content in the mean time.

Facts was never afraid to handle serious issues, and in season one, every single one of its scant 13 episodes dealt with a serious issue of the time. In this episode, the second ever of the series, we deal with Blair's consternation at being the daughter of a great big slut.

The word "slut" is loaded and inappropriate, and I use it here not to give it validity, but as a historical artifact. I frequently mention that as progressive as I think the show often was, it is a product of its time, and there is no doubt that in 1979 the label would have been stuck on Blair's mother immediately. And I found myself buying some of the things they were trying to sell me, and it made me uncomfortable. Some parts of this episode are just dreadful, but it raises some interesting questions about the picture they paint of Monica Warner and how we are supposed to react to it.

Recap Episode 1-11 "Running" or My first request!

It turns out that third year of law school is not the picnic everyone promised. That’s at least in part because I made bad choices, but that’s neither here nor there, since the practical reality is that I haven’t been able to keep up with this blog. And also I have no actual Internet right now, thanks to shitty Comcast, so I have to use my phone as a hotspot. But having acquired a new viewer in RJ Guy, and having received a request for more season one recaps, particularly “Running,” I’m happy to oblige! I promised, and I keep my promises! I feel like there should have been a Facts of Life episode about keeping promises, but I can't recall one. It's sort of alluded to in the Jermaine Jackson episode, but that's more about learning that stars are not your friends. Anyway, on with the recap!

After some opening filler involving a hilarious camera that dates the show, a Blair photo shoot that they totally should have showed during the reunion show for the Survivor where Lisa Whelchel finished second, and some inane dialogue from Tootie and Natalie that makes you wonder why they were kept for the second season, we get to the meat of the episode. Mr. Bradley appears wielding the trophy for the state championships in the mile. Apparently if Eastland wins the mile one more time, they get permanent possession of the trophy. Mr. Bradley is very attached to this trophy, it seems, and he’s counting on Sue Ann to once again bring home the gold. We learn that she’s won it two years in a row, which means she had to have won it as a freshman, which will be clear when I get around to doing that timeline I’ve been promising.

However, I don’t recall Sue Ann ever being a track star before. In fact, this revelation seems inconsistent with the “Dieting” episode, where she worries that she needs to lose weight fast. Now, I understand that being an athlete doesn’t make a girl immune from body dysmorphia, but I feel like this is an understanding that would not have been common in 1979. Also, if she was as much of a running prodigy as the previous paragraph describes, and she suddenly stopped eating, wouldn’t her track performance have been affected, and someone would have noticed before she fainted? Am I asking too much from season one?

Recap Episode 1-13(1): "Dope" or Helen Hunt smokes a bong* (part 1 of 2)

* Rather, the character played by Helen Hunt in this episode smokes a bong.

I bet you didn't know that Helen Hunt was in a Facts of Life episode! Although I did mention it in my very first blog post, so if you read that, you already knew. This is the one she's in and it's a first-season classic in which we find out there's weed at Eastland.

We open with Blair and Sue Ann, who apparently are best friends even though they've spent the rest of the season as frenemies, more or less. I have to say I quite like the word "frenemies." I usually don't like made-up words, but that one captures a phenomenon that truly exists and did not have a word before. Anyway, Blair has a secret that she can't tell Sue Ann unless Sue Ann swears she won't tell anyone. After a weird exchange in which Sue Ann refuses to swear on her mother's life because she's only 41, but agrees to swear on her dog's life instead (??), we learn the big crazy secret:

Blair got Sue Ann into "The Group."

Recap Episode 1-1: "Rough Housing"

Ladies, gentlemen, and anyone else, meet the very first episode of The Facts of Life: Rough Housing, in which princess Blair accuses jock Cindy of being a lesbian (but without using the 'l' word, of course), and Cindy manages it not by being out and proud, but by finally becoming attracted to her first boy.

We begin with our establishing shot in the girls' dorm house thingy. All the girls are there busy with something or other, and we soon learn they are setting up for the Harvest Fair. Lest we forget that this show is a spin-off of "Diff'rent Strokes," Mr. Drummond and Willis come in to pick up Kimberly and make some dumb jokes about crime in the city. 

Enter Cindy in a football jersey, hair tucked into her New York Yankees baseball hat, carrying a pig, which I guess is involved in the harvest fair somehow. There's some dialogue between Cindy and Willis in which Willis comments that Cindy looks like a boy, just in case we missed what they were going for.

Blair is standing at the bottom of the stairs buffing her nails, and thus our conflict gets its initial set-up.

Don't let Blair tell you she's never touched a pig.